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October 31, 2008
Parenting at a different level
Teenagers may catch complacent parents completely unprepared.
KELLEY KORBIN
As if it wasn't hard enough the first time, I am now reliving my teenage years, only this time I am living it vicariously through my children, which has the double whammy of all the angst with none of the naughty pleasures.
For me the issue with teens all comes down to control. Granted, people who knew me way back when will attest to the fact that, at least some of the time, I wasn't in a whole lot of control then either. But, for the past 20 or so years I have actually had a fair bit of control over my life and over the lives of my kids – and I liked it that way.
Yes, that first colicky baby was a definite shock to the system, but my better half and I quickly learned the ropes and gradually gained control over our growing brood. We made it out of the baby cave and settled in to family life, moving (mostly) smoothly from one phase to another – from diapers to training wheels to helping with homework and, finally, to the babysitting course. Of course, that's exactly when we started to get cocky.
In my new role as a parent of teenagers, I now lovingly refer to those years when your children are between three and 13 as the golden years. They lulled us into the complacency of really believing that we had this parent thing dialed. We freely dispensed our hard-earned and, we thought, brilliant, advice to new parents about love and limits and how to maintain control of your flock while still allowing them to express their individuality. At the same time, we began to taste the freedom of leaving the kids home alone for a few hours while we enjoyed a run on the seawall. Yep, life was going swimmingly. And then, just around this time last year, the teen years hit like a tsunami and we were floundering to find a life-raft to cling to.
We probably should have seen it coming, what with the mood swings and the acne and all but, honestly, when those police officers knocked on our door at 2 a.m. one morning with our nervous and sheepish Grade 9 son in tow we were shocked. Seems he had pulled his mother's old trick of sneaking out of the house with his friends while we were naively snoring away in our upstairs bedroom. With a wink and a knowing glance, the officers happily handed off our truant kid.
In terms of control, it has been all down hill from there. Oh, he hasn't snuck out of the house since, but there was that other police incident with the backpack full of firecrackers. Actually, he is really great – he comes home at his curfew, does well in school and often helps around the house. Most importantly, he has learned to trust us enough to call when he needs help. But still, there is no denying that parental control at our house has eroded considerably. I dread weekends, never quite sure what new surprise will greet me on Saturday night. I worry continuously that he will take a stupid risk in one of his myriad high-risk sports (just this week he broke his wrist skateboarding) and I can't stand that pants are always below his butt – what is that all about? I'm seriously concerned that he'll develop hip problems from walking like a cowboy all the time.
"Pick your battles" is the advice often bandied around. Yeah that works until I have PMS and go off the deep end.
Actually, I hope that we won't have that many battles. I am starting to realize that as my children go through adolescence it's the internal struggle that I am going to have to win – the struggle to control my own actions and reactions and to trust that the foundation of love and limits and mutual respect that we worked so hard to build when our children were little will be enough to guide them successfully through the turbulence of youth.
Kelley Korbin is a freelance writer living in West Vancouver.
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